The FCC Media Bureau has extended the deadline for filing reply comments on how to address issues raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Prometheus vs. FCC that halted the last changes to media ownership rules approved by the commission.

Reply comments were due Dec. 21. However, the extension moves that deadline to Jan. 16, 2007.

The commission had asked for comments on each of the ownership rules remanded by the court and asked those filing comments to include empirical data with their filing. Late last month, the commission announced it had authorized several studies on a variety of topics related to the media ownership.

Last week, Media General asked the FCC to extend the deadline for reply comments until 45 days after the release of those studies. If the commission decided to reject the request for a 45 day extension, Media General asked for an extension until Jan. 16, 2007.

In granting the shorter extension, the Media Bureau said the new deadline was in the public’s interest because of the complexity of the issue and importance of the issues being raised, but denied the longer extension request.